In a Russia Today TV interview, former Russian energy minister Yuri Shafranik said that "the American priorities are clear" and are "directed today toward Iran." "I am convinced that via Iran, the U.S. will be able to influence the Middle East," he said in the interview, which ai...

Some
three weeks ago, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, which is
part of the Russian Federation, launched a brutal media campaign against
Russian opposition politicians and journalists, and against human rights
activists and organizations in Russia that criticize ...

In an address delivered on January 26, 2016, Russian ambassador to Kuwait Alexey Solomatin said that this is "a transitional stage from the hegemony of a single country over the entire world, a stage in which one player directed everything all over the world, and would try to giv...

A
January 22, 2016 article in the pro-regime Russian website Pravda.ru[1]
responds to the British public inquiry into the murder of former Russian spy Aleksandr
Litvinenko, which named as the prime suspects former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy
and former Russian military officer Dmit...

Companies in the Russian defense industry are beginning 2016 with
optimism: The contracts in their portfolio exceed $50 billion, and the military
campaign in Syria has been excellent advertising for Russian armaments.
In an article published last
week in Kommersant-Dengi magazin...

The concept of a new "cold war" and a
"sanctions war" that has been ongoing between Russia and the U.S. in
recent years are hot topics in the Russian mass media, and among experts and
the academic community. In an article in the Russian business daily RBC,
Victoria Zhuravleva, a ...

On January 14, 2016, pravo.gov.ru,
the official website for Russian legislation, published the full text of an agreement
between Russia and the Syrian regime "concerning the stationing of the
aviation group of the Russian armed forces on the territory of the Syrian Arab
Republic....

On a recent condolence visit to Iraq, the Grand Mufti of Russia Talgat Tadzhuddin said that "even in the face of the Communist ordeal, we have managed to protect our religion and our unity," and that "in the past 15 years... we have built 7,500 new mosques and seven Islamic unive...

On December 31, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to
update the National Security Strategy for the Russian Federation.[1] According to Russian legislation, the
documents relating to strategic planning have to be updated once every six years.
The previous Nat...

The
Russian-Turkish conflict is reflected not only in the military, political and
economic tension between the two countries but also in the Russian media, which
expresses extreme hostility towards Turkey and its president.
This
is evident, for example, in articles in English pu...

The
pro-regime Russian media is filled with hate towards the U.S., comparing it to Nazi
Germany,[1] accusing
it of fascism, and describing U.S. leaders and their policies in extremely
derogatory terms. The message of hate towards the U.S. is often apparent from
the article's head...

Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and British resident released from Guantanamo Bay after 14 years imprisonment, was interviewed by Russia Today TV on January 12, 2016. Aamer said that the families of soldiers serving in Guantanamo should "call their kids back." "Tell them: 'No, I do...

Anti-American
cartoons are quite common in the pro-government Russian media. The following
are examples of such cartoons that describe the U.S. as an evil power that
promotes terrorism while pretending to fight it. The cartoons are taken from
two pro-regime Russian media outlets:...

The
Pravda.Ru[1]
and NEO (New Eastern Outlook)[2]
websites are part of a network of Russian media outlets in English. In two virulently
anti-American articles published on these sites, the writers draw a comparison
between the U.S. and Nazi Germany, describing the battle over S...

At the Expanded Meeting of the Defense
Ministry Board on December 11, 2015, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and
Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu discussed the military aspects of Russia's foreign
policy, including its intervention in the Middle East and its deployment
vis-a-vis N...

Russia has been a great power for centuries, and for much of that
time it has looked south and east, to the Muslim world and to the Middle East.
From the ancient image of a golden Tsargrad,
to the many wars with the Ottoman Empire, to support for abused Orthodox
Christians, to ...

In a video released by Russia Today TV to mark the channel's 10th anniversary, Obama and Kerry are shown in 2035, lamenting the "new era of transparency," under US President Edward Snowden. "No one is afraid of us anymore," says Kerry. The video ends with the message: "RT. By thi...

On
October 29, 2015, the Tahrir Homs ("Free Homs") militia, which operates
in the area north of this city and is part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that
is fighting the Syrian regime, announced that it has established a military training
facility near Homs where its officers will...

For
the past week, even before
Turkey's downing of the Russian plane, Syrian and pro-Syrian Lebanese
media have been publishing articles estimating that Syria is facing a new stage
in Russia's military involvement in the country, and that Russia is expected to
escalate its partic...

Russia military footage aired on Russia Today TV on November 18 shows the bombing of a convoy of oil trucks. According to the report, Russian air force destroyed the trucks, which belonged to "armed terrorist groups" in Syria....

In a video posted on the Internet on November 3, ISIS militants are shown handing out candy to celebrate the October 31 "downing" of the Russian plane over the Sinai. A militant speaking in Russian and holding a knife addresses Putin, saying: "We will attack you in your own lands...

IntroductionIn late September 2015, prior to
his departure for New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Iraqi Prime
Minister Haider Al-'Abadi announced the establishment of a joint intelligence
center in Baghdad for Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Russia. The intelligence center,
he sa...

In a video posted on the Internet on October 13, 2015, foreign Jihadi fighters are shown standing with weapons and threatening Russia that "Syria will be the graveyard of the Russians."
Following are excerpts:
Saudi cleric Abdallah Al-Muhaysini: Oh Russians, you are welcome to ...

In a recent demonstration in Australia, Ismail Al-Wahwah (a.k.a. "Abu Anas"), the leader of the Australian chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, said: "Syria will become, Allah willing, the graveyard of the czars and their dreams and of the infidel West in its entirety." His address was pos...

Egyptian TV host Ahmed Moussa recently hailed Russia as "fighting terrorism for real" in Syria. "Watch what the Russian airforce
is doing to [the ISIS convoys]," he said. However, the footage he aired was in fact footage of a computer game called "Apache: Air Assault." The show a...

According to recently published reports, for example a report by Ibrahim Al-Amin, board chairman of the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, in the past four months Iran has held intensive contacts with Russia to coordinate the parameters of Russia's intervention in Syria.[1] ...

A Russian website, Dobrovolec.org, has posted a call for volunteers to enlist for Russia's military activity in Syria.
Dobrovolec was founded in the winter of 2014, during the Crimean crisis, and at that time called for volunteers to enlist for military activity in Ukraine. It d...

On September 3, 2015, not two months after the July 14 announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Vienna and its celebration at the White House and in Europe, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dropped a bombshell.
In a speech to the Iranian Assembly of Experts, ...

On March 14, 2014, a delegation of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), led by its secretary-general Bilal Ag Acherif, met in Moscow with Mikhail Bognarov, Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs and special envoy for Africa and the Middle East. The deleg...

In a January 25, 2014 communiqué titled "Russia Has Been Warned", the jihadi website VDagestan.com, the mouthpiece for the Dagestan branch of the Caucasus Emirate, refers to the December 2013 bombings in Volvagrad and threatens more attacks against Russia unless it withdraws from...

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. On January 18, 2013, a group called Ansar Al-Sunna published a statement on the website VDagestan titled “A Message to Russia's ...

On April 5, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision to establish a
National Guard for the country, that will be "formed on the basis of" the state's Interior
Ministry Troops. Putin also announced that Russia's Federal Drug Control
Service and Federal Migrati...

On April 20, 2016, the NATO-Russia Council's first meeting in almost two years took place in Brussels, Belgium. The last time the NRC met was in June 2014.[1] Following the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, civilian and military cooperation between ...

On April 16, 2016, the English-language website of the pro-Kremlin media outlet Pravda.ru published an article by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, director and editor-in-chief of the Portuguese-language Pravda.ru website, titled "Kerry: Reckless, Provocative, Dangerous."[1] In the arti...

On April 14, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin answered questions from the nation in his annual Q&A session on the Direct Line program broadcast live on Channel One, Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 TV channels, and Mayak, VestiFM and Radio Rossii radio stations. Among this year...

On March 30, 2016, the Russian foreign affairs journal Russia in Global Affairs published an article by Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and a member of the Public Council of the Russian Defense Ministry, titled...

On January 19, 2016, the website of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Club published a report by Andrei Kazantsev, director of the Analytical Center of the Institute for International Studies in Russia, titled "Central-Asia: Secular Statehood Challenged by Radical Islam."[1] Kaz...

In a March 21, 2016 article in the Russian independent weekly The New Times, journalist Orkhan Jemal, whose father is Heydar Jemal, a leading Russian Islamic intellectual and chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia, presented his overview of Russia's reasons for intervening i...

On March 29, 2016, the Russian government-funded think tank Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) published an interview with its Director General Andrey Kortunov. In the interview, Kortunov asserts that Russia opposes moves to partition Syria. He suggests that a potential...

In recent days, tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over the U.S. decision to increase the budgets and activities of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stated that Russia is ready to respond to NATO's growing potential in Europe....

On February 24, 2016, the well-known Russian liberal website Gazeta.ru published an article about the Kremlin's position toward the Russian Jewish community.
It should be mentioned that, although one of Vladimir Lenin's first decisions as the new head of Soviet Russia was to g...

On March 20, 2016, the Russian state-owned
media outlet Sputnik published an article entitled "Not Coming Home: What
Russian Hardware Stays in Syria After Pullout and Why." The article lists the military hardware slated to remain in the Hmeymim Air Base in Syria, after the
with...

The Russian government-funded think tank Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) recently
published on its website an article by Igor Ivanov,
the think tank's president of and former minister of foreign affairs of the
Russian Federation (1998-2004). In the article, titled ...

On March 23-24, 2016, U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry visited Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. According to reports, the meetings, which
focused mainly on Syria and the Ukrainian crisis, were "relaxed," "friendly,"
and ch...

MEMRI is now offering readers interested in its Russian Media Studies Project an opportunity to sign up to receive this project's publications by email, separately from MEMRI publications concerning Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashtu, and Turkish.
Subscribers will receive all MEMRI Ru...

On February 13, 2016, the
Russian foreign affairs journal Russia in Global Affairs published an
article by Russian political analyst Sergey Karaganov, entitled "A Time of
Trouble and A Time of Opportunity." In the article, Karaganov argues that
Russia and the West are in a pre-wa...

On March 1, 2016, the Russian state-owned media outlet Sputnik
published an article by Russian political scientist Ivan Zadorozhny titled
"Why American GDP Won't Matter in a War with Russia." The article states
that a U.S.-Russia war might happen in the foreseeable future, and th...

On February 29, 2016, Russian
statesman Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, published in the Russian independent
biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta[1] an
article titled "I'm Certain: All Is Not Lost." In it, he stressed
that Russia needs "a real democracy" in order to emerg...

On February 26, 2016, Russian
President Vladimir Putin attended a board meeting of the Federal Security
Service (FSB),[1] one of the successors of the Soviet-era KGB. The purpose of the
meeting was to
review the outcomes of the service's work in 2015 and set its priorities for...

Days before the Valdai Discussion Club's
February 25-26, 2016 conference in Moscow,[1]
titled "The Middle East: From Violence to Security," the Saudi
London-based daily Al-Hayat
published a report on leading Russian political analysts' views about Russia's
Middle East policy.
...

On February 15, 2016, the Russian weekly magazine The New Times published an interview with political analyst Sergey Karaganov, dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow's National Research University Higher School of Economics, about Russia's forei...

In an
article published in the Russian daily Vedomosti on February 16, 2016, Russian
sociologist Denis Sokolov, a senior researcher at the Russian Presidential
Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, analyses recent
developments in Russia, focusing on the role of C...

On February 15, 2016, Russian oppositionist
politician Leonid Gozman, president of the neoliberal movement Union of Right
Forces, published an open letter[1]
calling upon Russian President Vladimir Putin to resign, saying that this is
the only way to save Russia. In his letter...

In an article titled "Forget
about Any Revolution Happening Today," Russian political analyst Vladislav
Inozemtsev, director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, asks
whether Russia's business elite is
likely to come out against the policies of the regime and a...

On
February 5, 2016, the Russian media outlet RBC Daily reported on military
countermeasures that Russia
is taking in response to America's
increased funding for military forces in Europe
and to the increased military exercises in NATO countries.[1]
According to the article, the...

In
February 2016, an anti-smoking advertisement appeared on a Moscow bus shelter that stated that "smoking kills
more people than Obama." After photos of
the advertisement (which had no attribution) went viral on Russian social networks,
the Moscow
municipality reported tha...

On February 3, 2016, Russian businessman and
prominent oppositionist Gennady Gudkov wrote on his blog, which appears on the
website of the independent Russian radio station Echo of Moscow, that the
Kremlin has rendered the Duma (Russia's lower house of parliament) ineffectual.
Gu...

Recently,
the Russian campaign in Syria reached its 100th day. An article in Expert Online,
the website of the influential Russian analytical magazine Expert,
reviews the state of the Syria war, analyzing the activities on various fronts
as well as the Russian involvement. The ar...

A ceremony marking
the 37th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution was held by the Iranian
ambassador to Russia and was attended by many government officials, NGO
officials, and military attach├®s. A report on the ceremony was broadcast by
Press TV on February 12, 2016.Click here ...

In recent days, Russian Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev and Russian media outlets warned that, if Turkey and/or
Arab states send ground troops into Syria, the conflict may escalate into a
regional war or even a new world war.
In a February 11, 2016 interview with
the German pape...

At a January 19, 2016 meeting
in Moscow with representatives of the European Jewish Congress, Russian
President Vladimir Putin suggested with a smile that Western Jews could come to
Russia to find refuge from the growing antisemitism in the West.[1] According to the Russian pape...

In an interview with the
Syrian Sama TV channel, Russian diplomat Maria Khodynskaya-Golenishcheva said
that U.N. Special Envoy for the Syria Crisis Staffan de Mistura had "committed
several mistakes" during the preparations for the Geneva III Conference. "To
this day, de Mistura ...

To mark the fifth anniversary of the New START
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which was signed in April 2010 and came into
force on February 5, 2011, U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice stated:
"We look forward to full implementation of the Treaty and continue to call
o...

The sixth
Gaidar Economic Forum, held in Moscow on January 13-15, 2016, addressed the
economic situation in Russia and the country's economic difficulties. Held
annually since 2010 and named after leading Russian economist Yegor Gaidar,
architect of Russia's free-market transit...

On
February 5, 2016, the pro-regime Russian website Pravda.ru[1]
published an interview with Russian political scientist Elena Ponomareva[2]
on the crisis in Syria and on other issues of global politics.
Asked
why the West was criticizing Russia's role and actions in Syria, s...

Some
three weeks ago, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, which is
part of the Russian Federation, launched a brutal media campaign against
Russian opposition politicians and journalists, and against human rights
activists and organizations in Russia that criticize ...

Recently, the Syrian army and the forces that back it, with the support of the Russians, managed to take control of a large part of the Dar'a governorate in southern Syria. This occurred following a military campaign against Syrian opposition factions that began on June 19, 2018....

In light of Israel's recent military operations against Iran's military expansion in Syria, comprising strikes against strategic Iranian and Syrian targets such as Iran-controlled airfields, missile bases, and drone bases, Iran now faces a strategic question: whether to respond t...

On January 30, 2018, the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue was held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. The conference, led by Russia, was part of that country's efforts to advance a political solution for the Syria crisis.
The week before the conference, on January 2...

Introduction
On December 22, 2017, at the end of the eighth round of intra-Syrian talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, which focused on the topic of the ceasefire, the three countries sponsoring the talks – Iran, Russia and Turkey – announced that a national dialogue conference would ...

Following the November 12, 2017 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, President Trump agreed to, and legitimized Iran's expansion in Syria, including the deployment of Iranian a...

IRGC Commander 'Ali Jaafari: "Iran bears the banner of the fulfillment of God's promises. It has taken a historic turn, and today a new era of global developments is beginning... [This era] started with imposing significant defeats upon the camp of the Great Arrogance, America. W...

On March 7, 2017, the chiefs of staff of the U.S., Russian, and Turkish militaries met in Antalya, Turkey to discuss security problems in Syria and Iraq. Conspicuous in its absence at the meeting was any Iranian representation whatsoever. According to a Russian Defense Ministry r...

Introduction
On December 20, 2016, the Russian, Iranian, and Turkish defense and foreign ministers met in Moscow to discuss potential solutions to the Syria crisis. Following the meeting, the ministers announced that they had approved the Moscow Declaration, which Russian Defe...

Introduction
On May 24, 2016, Elie Hanna, a
journalist for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to the
Syrian regime, published excerpts of the draft of a "Russian constitution
for Syria," which included what he called "substantial changes to the
current constitution." T...

NATO's
eastward enlargement and the recent deployment of NATO's ballistic missile
defense system in Eastern Europe has been a featured topic of anti-NATO
cartoons in pro-Kremlin media outlets.[1] The
following is a sampling of such cartoons published in Russia's government-funded...

Introduction
Political cartoons can currently
be found in only a few independent media outlets, such as Polit.ru and Svoboda.org,
and in some pro-Kremlin websites and newspapers, such as RIA Novosti,[1] Sputnik International,[2] and Sharzh I
Pero. The
main motif in cartoons ...

According to many reports in the Arab press in recent days, alongside the indirect talks in Geneva between the Syrian regime and opposition that are being mediated by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, the U.S. and Russia have been conducting separate secret talks to draw up un...

On March 14, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin
announced that the following day Russia would begin withdrawing most its forces
from Syria, stating that they had accomplished most of their objectives there.
He added that some Russian forces would remain at the Hmeymim airbase...

Introduction
On March 14, 2016, Russia announced that the next
day, March 15, it would begin its withdrawal from Syria. In a MEMRI report published yesterday, Russian political analyst Sergey Karaganov, who
is close to the Kremlin, stated that Russia must be extremely careful no...

IntroductionIn late September 2015, prior to
his departure for New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Iraqi Prime
Minister Haider Al-'Abadi announced the establishment of a joint intelligence
center in Baghdad for Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Russia. The intelligence center,
he sa...

According to recently published reports, for example a report by Ibrahim Al-Amin, board chairman of the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, in the past four months Iran has held intensive contacts with Russia to coordinate the parameters of Russia's intervention in Syria.[1] ...

Heshmat-Allah Falahat Pishe, Chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian Majlis, was interviewed on Russia Today TV on February 1,2019. Pishe denied that he had accused Russia of collaborating with Israel in Syria against Iran. However, he asked ...

During an interview posted by elnashra.com on December 22, 2018, Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin said that recent wars and economic sanctions have had a negative impact on Russia. He said that a different way of doing things must be found, because it is intolerab...

Albir Krganov, the mufti of Moscow, was interviewed on Al-Nujaba TV (Iraq) on December 15, 2018. He said that ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra are banned in Russia because they are recognized as terrorist organizations. He added that the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were subjected to extr...

In a series of short interviews posted online by the Nas Media Company (Iraq), captured senior ISIS operative Saddam Al-Jamal said that ISIS had made oil deals with the Syrian regime and with the Russians. He said that ISIS would deliver thousands of tankers full of oil to t...

Bilal Abdul Kareem from On The Ground News interviewed Abu Salman Al-Belarusi, who is the head of Malhama Tactical, a private contractor in Syria that trains the Al-Qaeda-affiliated HTS and other groups. Al-Belarusi spoke about a recent HTS raid on Al-Tarabiya, a village on the n...

In an interview with the Iraqi Al-Nujaba TV, former Russian diplomat Oleg Fomin said that Russia is not afraid that the U.S. will attack Russia, but that it is preparing to retaliate in the event of an attack. He said that American leaders are crazy, and that many ordinary people...

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin said that "it seems as if the West wants to help the terrorists in an attack against the Syrian army and its allies" and that "they want to resort, once again, to the issue of chemical [weapons]," calling it "the most provocative s...

On August 21, ISIS' Amaq Media released a video showing four children and teenagers, the perpetrators of the previous day's attacks on security forces in Chechnya, pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. According to media reports, the attacks, for which ISIS cla...

The Russian naval forces stationed at Tartus, Syria, conducted maneuvers on July 30 to mark Russian Naval Day, in the presence of Syrian and Russian commanders and Syrian government officials. General Hassan Hassan, Head of the Political Bureau in the Syrian Army, declared that "...

Deputy President Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences Colonel Konstantin Sivkov said that the "stubbornness" of the U.S. Congress is sending Turkey into the arms of Russia. "Unfortunately – or rather, fortunately – the American political leadership lacks the brains t...

On June 13, the pro-ISIS media outlet Al-'Adiyat released a short video threatening attacks on the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament in Russia. The video consists mainly of a compilation of combat footage from ISIS videos documenting battles in Mosul, Iraq, with a segment from a 2...

Iranian Middle East expert Dr. Masoud Asadollahi, a member of the Iranian delegation to the Astana talks, recently revealed Russian-Iranian discord with regard to the presence of Iranian and Hizbullah forces in Syria. Dr. Asadollahi talked about the recent statement by Putin's sp...

During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (24-26 May, 2018), French President Emmanuel Macron quoted French president Gen. Charles de Gaulle, by stating that Europe stretches from the "Atlantic to the Urals." De Gaulle looked to Russia to build a strong Europe that c...

In a four-installment interview with Russia Today TV, former Russian ambassador to Qatar Vladimir Titorenko talked about the deterioration in Russian-Qatari relations with the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011 and about Qatar's role in fanning the flames of the revolutions. He rec...

In a recent Russia 24 interview, which aired on April 24, the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov said that Russia is under constant Western pressure and that according to his view, any Western provocation should be met with "forceful measures." He hinted that as a w...

Andrei Baklanov, an advisor at the Russian Federation Council and former Russian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, warned the U.S. against continuing its “provocations.” In an April 16 interview to Russia Today Arabic TV, Baklanov said that if the U.S. directly targets Russia’s interes...

Russian diplomat Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Council of Federation, said that he hoped that the countries allied with the U.S. would be a small minority and that "the majority should be allies with countries such as Russia, because we are...

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin said in an April 11 Al-Manar TV interview that "If there is an American strike... Let me refer you to the statement by President Putin and the Russian Chief-of-Staff that the missiles will be shot down and&...

Egyptian TV host Sayyed Ali criticized U.S. President Trump's condemnation of Bashar Al-Assad following the chemical attack in Douma. Calling Trump a "lunatic," an "extortionist," and a "gallant Pasha, who behaves like a bully at a cabaret," and criticizing his use of the term "a...

Riyad Naasan Agha, Syria's former minister of culture who defected to the opposition, said: "If only the regime regains control, and the Russians and Iranians leave [Syria]." Speaking on Al-Arabiya TV on April 5, he said that "all the countries of the world have a piece of the Sy...

On International Women's Day, held on March 10, Russia Today broadcast a TV report on the celebrations held by Russian women living in Gaza. The footage showed ballet performances by children trained by Russian teachers. Hala Al-Zabda, Director-General of the Ministry of Women's ...

Following U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's accusations that President Putin was responsible for the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Skripal, Russian politician Evgeniy Tarlo accused the West of trying to influence Russian elections, and said: "Intellectual degenerates and moral...

Following the poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, TV host Cyril Kleymenov cautioned against choosing a professional career as a "traitor," and warned Russians not to take up residence in England, because in recent years, there have been too many cases of people ...

The first round of the Russian presidential debates, held on February 28 with the participation of all candidates with the exception of President Vladimir Putin, turned into a shouting match, with candidate Vladimir Zhirinovski, the leader of the LDPR, insulting some of his adver...

Local teachers at a music school in Astrahan sang a song glorifying Russian President Vladimir Putin at a birthday party for one of the teachers. The song, written in 2014 by local composer poet Tatiana Klenkova, contains lyrics such as: "Putin – he never gives up," "we are invin...

Russian MP Tamara Pletneva of the Communist Party said, when interviewed in a street poll about the upcoming presidential elections, that although she would vote, "there are no real elections, only falsifications." Pletneva, who has been a member of Duma since 1993 and currently ...

In an Al-Jazeera TV interview on February 10, Russian political analyst and former diplomat Viacheslav Matuzov said: "I believe that Russia gave the Syrian army the green light (to down the Israeli F-16)." While in the past, Russia encouraged Syria to "avoid opening a second fron...

Following the Russian-American dispute in the U.N. Security Council regarding the investigation into the chemical attacks in Syria, Russian political analyst and economist Mikhail Delyagin accused the U.S. of responsibility for the attacks, calling it a "major terrorist." Speakin...

In a video posted on YouTube following the downing of a Russian fighter jet in the Idlib province of Syria on February 3, Saudi Jihadi cleric Sheikh 'Abdallah Al-Muhaysini of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is seen celebrating the attack. "With the help of Allah, we shall restore the...

MP Anna Kuvichko of the ruling United Russia Party led a group of children from the military cadet class of a Volgograd school in an ultra-patriotic song. The lyrics call for the return of Alaska to Russia, mock the current international world order, and depict Russia as surround...

A three-minute video, distributed on January 18 via Telegram by ISIS supporters, shows an armed masked man speaking in Russian and declaring the establishment of a new "battalion" that will operate in Russia, especially in the Caucasus. His accent suggests that he is of Tatar or ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel between Communism and Christianity, saying that Communism implemented the same principles and that "they didn't invent anything new." His statements were aired on prime time Russia 1 TV on January 14 as a promo for a movie about th...

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin said, in a November 9 Mayadeen TV interview, that while "we are not against discussing the presence of armed forces [near the border]... the issue of Iranian and Hizbullah [presence near the border] was never on the agenda." Ambass...

Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin argued that in the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s and 1970s, "we cared about human rights more than many other countries," and that "If we delve into the issue of freedom, we realize that liberals and fascists converge at some point in thei...

Passersby in St. Petersburg watched in amazement as a bare-chested and tattooed man wearing a Donald Trump mask was led on a leash down Nevsky Prospect, the main street of the city. Aleksandr Donskoy, the former mayor of Arkhangelsk, held the other end of the leash and gave order...

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that the U.S. sanctions bill against Russia is intended to intimidate business circles in other countries in order to coerce them into making a choice. He further said that Russia needs to diminish its dependence upon the dollar...

Russian Media Studies Project

Though MEMRI, since its inception, has dealt with the Arab and Muslim world, its guiding concept is applicable to other global areas. MEMRI' analyses of conflicts between nations, societies, cultures or religions, are based on access to a wide array of primary source materials. This includes materials from the media, to understand the current public discourse; from schoolbooks, to understand the future; and from religious texts, wherever religion plays a substantial role in the lives of individuals and society.

This is the meaning behind MEMRI' s motto "bridging the language gap." For years, MEMRI has realized this vision by publishing analysis and translations from Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Urdu and Pashto into English and other languages, in order to inform the media, academia, legislatures and governments. We always hoped that the MEMRI model would also be applied to other arenas.

In January 2016, MEMRI we picked up the gauntlet ourselves and expanded our coverage to Russia by launching the Russian Media Studies Project.